Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of the Democratic contenders for the US presidency, has urged a bi-partisan national effort to fight the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement targeting Israel.
In a letter to one of her supporters, the businessman Haim Saban, Clinton called BDS “the latest effort to single out Israel on the world stage.” She also expressed her “alarm” over the BDS movement’s attempt to “punish Israel and dictate how the Israelis and Palestinians should resolve the core issues of their conflict."
“This is not the path to peace. We need to repudiate forceful efforts to malign and undermine Israel and the Jewish people… We need to make countering BDS a priority," the former US secretary of state wrote in the letter dated last Thursday and published this Monday.
“I know you agree that we need to make countering BDS a priority,” she wrote, asking for aid working “across party lines” to “fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel.”
“I have opposed dozens of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, the Human Rights Council, and other international organizations. I condemned the biased Goldstone Report, making it clear that Israel must be allowed to defend itself like any other country. And I made sure the United States blocked Palestinian attempts at the UN to unilaterally declare statehood. Time after time, no matter the venue, I have made it clear that America will always stand up for Israel – and that’s what I’ll always do as President," Clinton wrote.
She said Israel that remained “a vibrant democracy in a region dominated by autocracy, and it faces existential threats to its survival. The Jewish state is a modern-day miracle – a vibrant bloom in the middle of the desert.”
The Democratic presidential hopeful recalled how she and her husband Bill “fell in love with the country and its people," adding: “Israel became a special place for us, and I’m lucky to have had many opportunities to return and to make many dear friends there over the years.”
Clinton also reiterated her commitment to the two-state solution. “I remain convinced that Israel’s long-term security and future as a Jewish state depends on having two states for two peoples. But that outcome can only be achieved through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians – it cannot be imposed from the outside or by unilateral actions.”
